Today my friend Sean Holton passed away. He was diagnosed with brain cancer 2 years ago and chronicled his battle in his blog Same Time Tomorrow with the same wit, humor and grace that he brought to the rest of his life. I urge you to read his blog. His incredible writing will touch you. His humor will make you laugh at a topic that you might think is impossible to be funny about.

I have known Sean since I was a little girl. He worked with my Mother for many years and was not only a family friend but he became part of our family. As an only child he's the closest thing I had to an uncle. I admired him, looked up to him and like a little sister giddy to be spending time with her big brother -- I was always thrilled when I got to spend time with him.

A few weeks before his death I wrote Sean a letter. Just a little trip down memory lane. While I am not the amazing writer that Sean was, this is from the heart. I am re-posting it here.

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Dear Sean

I remember first meeting you when I was at mom's office in Kansas City.
Magnum PI was one of my favorite shows and you looked exactly like Tom
Selleck with your mustache! My 8 year old self was completely star
struck at your likeness to Magnum -- I expected you to start running
down a beach with two dobermans at any moment, music soaring in the
background.

I remember lots of Kansas City Star parties and
Burning Down the House playing on the stereo, everyone was dancing in
the living room. I can not hear that song and not think of you.

Remember "Gossip Queen Abdicates"? What I would call the most witty,
hilarious and touching story you wrote for my mom describing our Buick
as pink (it was sand colored, ahem). When that car became mine, every
time I drove it thought of you calling it a pink Buick and it would
always make me giggle.

When I moved to DC, you helped me find an apartment and took me door to
door until we found a place. Frantic phone calls were made to landlords,
you even ran to help me get copies of the lease, all of this while the
Oklahoma City Bombing was a breaking story, and you needed to be at the
office. Thank you.

I looked so much forward to our "Melrose
Monday's" at Craig and David's. I always cherished spending time with you guys and it was my highlight of every week. Remember
how Craig would leave the vacuum out because he had spent so much on it
he thought it should have a prominent place in the living room? I
remember watching Babe the Pig while you declared it BBQ night. Going to
see Sense and Sensibility at the Uptown theater in Cleveland Park. I
can't pass by The Dupont Italian Kitchen without thinking of you.

Thank you for giving a reading at our wedding. Thank you for your
writing, your humor, your wit your awesomeness. You are the brother and uncle I never had, all wrapped into one.
I love you Sean.

My friend Bernie who runs A Place to Bark is in the running for the Chase Giving contest. The winning prize is for 100 charities and they will spilt $3M. Wow! That could go a long way to saving so many animals from death row and that's why we want her to win this amazing opportunity! But we only have FOUR DAYS to get the word out. We need votes!

Please CLICK THIS LINK and then go and vote! Then tell all your friends! Post on Facebook, Twitter and email your friends too!

Because of the recession this year has been very difficult for a lot of charities and A Place to Bark is not excluded. Time and time again Bernie has come so near to having to close and stop taking in dogs. But she forges on, with her own money and funds and the kindness of vets allowing her to carry a VERY LARGE medical bill balance.

With this money A Place to Bark would be able to pay off all the debt, and save SO MANY MORE lives!! This needs to happen. So please help us spread the word!! ONLY FOUR DAYS LEFT!

Without A Place to Bark we wouldn't have our Maggie. Here's a photo of Maggie with me just minutes after we picked her up and were bringing her home! Saved from death row by Bernie - now spoiled rotten by us!!

Don't forget to CLICK THIS LINK and vote right now before you forget! Tell every single person you know to do it too, we only have until Nov 22nd!!!

UPDATED NOVEMBER 29, 2011Thanks to everyone for voting!! Bernie was able to place and win $25k for the rescue! Your support is appreciated!

I used Claudine Hellmuth Studio Sticky-Back Canvas and printed in my inkjet printer an old letter directly onto the canvas. I also used 19guage wire and wrapped the Sticky Back Canvas around it to create the swirlies at the top.

Don't miss the rest of the pumpkins from the other designers all this week at the Ranger blog!

I signed up for Rachel Taylor's e-class on surface pattern design. I have played around a little bit with pattern making, but I have SO much more to learn. These are a few patterns I created this year.

I like them, but I feel like I will be able so much more with pattern and my line drawings if I can learn just a little bit more about surface pattern design. I am hopeful this class will help me get what's in my head to happen on paper. We will see if I can do it! I'll share my experiments here as I work my way through the class exercises.

Here's a photo of my dad that I just had to share with you. He just found it and sent it with me and I had never seen it before. This was taken when he was about 33 and was working on an airport design. Very cool retro glasses dad!

I love seeing the models of the terminal
in the front. And the little people! See the little people hugging good-bye? oh what I would give to have some
of those little people and the airport models too.An airport architect for many years, my dad was featured in an article recently about the 30 year anniversary of the Orlando International Airport, along with my godfather John Wyckoff.

And we had very good news about my Dad today. After a month of nail biting waiting, a mass that was found on my dad's lung has turned out to be scar tissue from his lung cancer treatment last year. We are so relieved. It was a very scary few weeks waiting for the new tests to happen!